


Palm Dreams

by aizawashouta



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, California, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Post-Time Skip, Road Trips, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:55:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25554694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aizawashouta/pseuds/aizawashouta
Summary: All things considered, Iwaizumi can’t find it within himself to deal with today’s latest catastrophe — a single queen-sized bed sitting at the center of their shared hotel room.It’s the only piece of furniture, apart from a small nightstand to each side of it, a tall, old-fashioned floor lamp and a cozy-looking papasan chair in the back corner that Iwaizumi has a growing suspicion he’ll become intimately acquainted with over the course of the night.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Ushijima Wakatoshi
Comments: 19
Kudos: 219





	Palm Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> My hand slipped and suddenly there was only one bed, a lot of unnecessary pining and a spicy— I mean happy ending. I take no responsibility for any of this. ♡

Jealousy isn’t a flaw that comes naturally to Iwaizumi Hajime.

And how could it be when he’s never been given much reason to question his sense of belonging, of importance — to his teammates, his friends, and more than a handful of star-struck kouhai, trailing after him for guidance throughout the better half of his high school career.

When he’s spent his childhood watching over a clumsy, much less imposing Oikawa tugging on his sleeve and gazing up at him through wide brown eyes full of awe and open adoration, persistently wheedling him into one of their latest pinky promises.

_You won’t ever leave me, will you, Iwa-chan?_

One particular memory, however, continues to stick out like a sore thumb — Seijoh’s final, crushing defeat at the hands of Shiratorizawa Academy and their legendary ace, everything about that stony expression and unshakable composure radiating confidence. So much so, it left Iwaizumi feeling a harsh pang of inadequacy.

All things considered, he can’t even begin to wrap his head around the irony of the situation at hand as he listens to Ushijima ramble on just a step behind him, more talkative than usual, tone almost enthusiastic for Ushijima’s standards.

Iwaizumi watches his knuckles turn white when he rams the key into the lock in front of him a little more forcefully than strictly necessary.

“His jump float towards the end of the third set was deadly. Not to mention that the overall power of his serves seems to continue increasing. Oikawa has always been a remarkable pl—“

“Shut up about Tooru for one goddamn second, will you?” Iwaizumi finally snaps through his teeth, jaw clenched tightly.

He immediately regrets it, what with the bewildered expression on Ushijima’s face where he stands frozen to the spot a few feet further down the hallway. Confused olive eyes widen by a fraction before they flicker towards the ground, and Iwaizumi watches the soft, relaxed lines of Ushijima’s face morph into something distant, shutting him out.

(“My father left a few months before I turned eight. My mother preferred it when I kept quiet,” Iwaizumi remembers Ushijima’s confession under the dimmed lights of the izakaya they’d frequent during one of Iwaizumi’s first visits back home after he’d set off to Irvine, California to pursue a degree in sports science, and how Ushijima’s face had looked, the mirthless twist to the corner of his mouth, eyes lowered to stare at his hands folded in his lap.)

It’s there now, just barely, daring Iwaizumi to smooth it out with a chaste brush of his lips.

Iwaizumi feels like an ass.

“Listen, Wakatoshi—“

But Ushijima doesn’t listen. He doesn’t seem angry either, not by any means of the word, when he brushes past Iwaizumi to enter the small hotel room they’d agreed on sharing for the night. In a way, his muted calm makes Iwaizumi feel even worse than he already did.

A sharp intake of breath, immediately followed by a slow, carefully controlled exhale interrupts his train of thought in the middle of a rather snippy argument with himself — _and what would you have said to him anyway, huh? Sorry that I can’t stand the sound of Tooru’s name in your mouth? Sorry that I’m bitter? Sorry that I’m sick and tired of pining after a guy that’s been too busy fawning over my best friend since fucking middle school to even look at me twice? Yeah, right._

(Ushijima has never told Iwaizumi how he feels about Oikawa Tooru. Iwaizumi doesn’t need him to.)

“What’s up?” he finally catches up with his friend, follows him inside the room to sweep his tired gaze over its cream colored walls and assess the situation. 

_“Oh, great.”_

At this point he isn’t quite sure why he’s even surprised.

After weeks of meticulous planning and arranging, poring over maps and travel guides and google images of California’s most beautiful beaches, then gently urging a stunned Ushijima into accepting his invitation to take him on a weekend getaway to Mendocino about a month before Iwaizumi’s graduation ceremony, nearly everything about their trip had been nothing short of a disaster.

It’s not like Iwaizumi had asked for a lot. 

Telling himself that it wasn’t necessarily to _impress_ Ushijima, he’d saved up every last bit of cash he’d been able to spare, busting his ass working overtime at his part-time job. 

He’d expected to watch Ushijima’s stoic expression brighten at the view of Glass Beach near Fort Bragg, speckled with pebbles of smooth, colorful sea glass, only to learn that the average tourist’s greed for a souvenir or two had left their destination a little less breathtaking than the articles had led him to believe. Either way, Ushijima seemed enthusiastic enough in that quiet, controlled way of his until Iwaizumi watched him step straight into the remains of a stray bottle-neck where its jagged edges protruded from the sand beneath their bare feet.

He’d hoped to offer Ushijima his hand and help him climb atop one of the many enormous rocks poking out of the ocean towards the Northern end of Schooner Gulch State Beach like giant bowling balls, but that no longer seemed like an option. 

So Ushijima, still wearing his sand-filled trainers, had given Iwaizumi that final push instead, squinting up at him against the pale sunlight seconds before Iwaizumi lost his footing and slid down the slippery surface of the boulder. His fall sent them both crashing into the shallow water, spluttering and laughing and, in Iwaizumi’s case, flushing with red-hot embarrassment the whole way back to their tiny rental car.

“Here, take this, Hajime,” Ushijima had offered, eyeing Iwaizumi from his spot in the passenger seat, bare-chested and saltwater dripping from his hair. 

Iwaizumi accepted the black Team Japan hoodie without a word of resistance — not because he felt comfortable stealing Ushijima’s spare clothes, but because he didn’t trust what would come out of his mouth if he dared opening it at that particular moment.

Treating Ushijima to dinner that night had been a marginally less humiliating affair. 

That is if one is willing to overlook the confused surprise in Ushijima’s eyes when Iwaizumi awkwardly offered him a fork of his shrimp tagliatelle across the table, or kept _accidentally_ knocking their knees together under the table. 

One thing Iwaizumi _hadn’t_ been able to ignore, no matter how hard he grit his teeth, was the mention of Oikawa’s name spilling from Ushijima’s lips at any given opportunity. Even here. Even now when it was just the two of them, and the long-overdue confession he’d prepared so carefully remained lodged painfully in the back of his throat.

He supposes that one way or another he had already gotten his answer anyway.

All things considered, Iwaizumi can’t find it within himself to summon the energy to deal with today’s latest catastrophe — a single queen-sized bed sitting at the center of their cramped hotel room. 

It’s the only piece of furniture, apart from a small nightstand to each side of it, a tall, old-fashioned floor lamp and a cozy-looking papasan chair in the back corner that Iwaizumi has a growing suspicion he’ll become intimately acquainted with over the course of the night.

He needs to step out, if only for a few minutes. Stand under the cold spray of the shower, force his racing thoughts to slow down and his mind to go blank. Let the water patter down on his head and wash away his shame and frustration while he’s licking his wounds in solitude, starting to piece himself back together.

“I’m gonna go hit the shower, unless you want to use it first?” he mumbles under his breath without looking at Ushijima, who’s still firmly rooted to the spot in the middle of the room.

“Go ahead,” Ushijima croaks out stiffly.

There’s a brief beat of silence, tense and heavy, before Iwaizumi drops his overnight bag on the ground by the entrance, fishes out a shirt and a pair of clean underwear, and makes for their small ensuite bathroom.

“You can have the bed. No need to wait up for me.”

With that he lets the door click shut behind himself, the back of his head hitting the wood with a dull _thud_ as he tips it back, staring up at the low ceiling, wondering if somewhere along the line he may have gotten too greedy.

—

When Iwaizumi steps back into the bedroom about half an hour later, tousled hair sticking up in all directions and his plain black tank top clinging tightly to his damp skin, he’s met with the startling sight of Ushijima’s entire six feet and two inches awkwardly curled up in the papasan chair like a drowsy, oversized cat.

It looks terribly uncomfortable to say the least and while none of the possible implications of this choice sit particularly well with Iwaizumi, he can’t help the hint of a fond smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he gets closer — just to look at him for a little while. Undisturbed. Without the constant dread of being caught red-handed.

In a brief moment of weakness, Iwaizumi watches his own hand reach out like in a trance; a light brush of the backs of his fingers over sun-kissed skin, tucking a stray strand of hair back behind Ushijima’s ear. 

It’s gotten a bit long since he last saw him. 

Distantly, Iwaizumi wonders if Ushijima has anyone back home in Japan to tell him.

Ushijima’s cheek feels soft and warm to the touch, and for a minute or two Iwaizumi allows himself to get lost in the flutter of thick, dark lashes, black on bronze and much too delicate for a man of Ushijima’s hulking size, all hard lines and corded muscle. 

He’s never noticed they were this long, or maybe he has and simply tried not to think too hard about it.

_I can cut your hair for you if you want,_ his mind blurts out clumsily. 

Although he keeps his lips firmly pressed together, he silently tests the words out in his mouth before quickly discarding them, the intimacy of the suggestion feeling inappropriate whichever way he looks at it.

All thoughts of combing his hands through the soft strands that have started sliding back over Ushijima’s forehead, or carefully trimming the tips and massaging Ushijima’s scalp until his shoulders would relax and he’d be humming contentedly under Iwaizumi’s ministrations, fly out of his head when Ushijima stirs in his sleep, that hazy golden gaze peering up at him disorientedly.

(If it makes Iwaizumi’s heart swell in his chest until it feels like it’s about to burst straight through the too small confines of his ribcage, he hopes Ushijima doesn’t notice.)

To his surprise, Ushijima instinctively leans into Iwaizumi’s palm just to flinch back into his seat as if he’d been scalded half a second later, hard enough for the chair to softly knock into the wall behind him _._ There’s confusion written all over Ushijima’s face, the puzzled, sleepy kind, and something else that Iwaizumi can’t quite put a finger on, lurking underneath the surface.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d have taken it for embarrassment, tinged with a trace of disappointment and, inexplicably, guilt.

As it is, his eyes widen in response, panic coiling at the bottom of his stomach. He never meant to spook Ushijima like this, yet he’s done a pretty good job of it anyway and can only hope Ushijima won’t take it the wrong way — _please,_ God please, don’t take it the wrong way.

( _More like the right way,_ his brain instantly provides, unhelpfully.)

“Rise and shine, sleepyhead,” Iwaizumi jokes in his best attempt at feigning nonchalance, then gently flicks Ushijima in the forehead for good measure.

“I hate to break it to you, but if you continue sleeping in that chair, you’ll ruin your back and I’ll have to spend the better part of tomorrow morning massaging out the kinks,” he adds sternly and offers his hand to help Ushijima up.

“I’d much rather go and take those surfing lessons with you instead, so come on.” 

That’s a lie, but he’s done digging his own grave, at least for the night. 

Iwaizumi stares him down, grabbing his wrist impatiently once he realizes that Ushijima won’t budge so easily (and he should have expected it, really, after all these years).

“Where else would I sleep?”

The question catches Iwaizumi off-guard.

“I _told_ you that you can have the bed, silly.”

Being faced with that same stubborn look Ushijima gets whenever he refuses to cooperate — like when Iwaizumi lets him have the last slice of pizza or pick one of those mind-numbing documentaries on plants he knows Iwaizumi finds less than thrilling on movie night, Iwaizumi throws up his hands, incredulous, his patience wearing thin.

“You have two options and about ten seconds to choose. Take the bed, or share the bed. You’re not staying in that god-awful chair. Don’t even suggest sleeping on the floor, it’s not an alternative. What’s the point in hurting yourself when there’s a perfectly good—”

“You’d be comfortable sharing the bed?”

Iwaizumi narrows his eyes, hands on his hips.

“Why the hell would I mind, Wakatoshi?” he says simply, not in the mood to have a full-blown conversation about all the reasons why this is a terrible idea, why his entire body is burning up with nerves and anticipation and he feels like a teenager on the way to his first date, why he wants to curl around Ushijima’s back, press his nose to the nape of his neck and breath in his scent, fingers wandering idly underneath the front of Ushijima’s shirt.

_You should be uncomfortable,_ he thinks bitterly, ashamed of himself for even entertaining the fantasy when Ushijima is right there, allowing Iwaizumi to pull him out of his seat and guide him towards the bed that suddenly looks so small, especially for a pair of tall, quite strongly built men in their mid-twenties.

“Do you prefer sleeping on the left side or—” Ushijima starts warily, hovering by the edge of the mattress, seemingly unsure what to do with his hands, or the rest of his body for that matter.

“For fucks sake,” Iwaizumi murmurs under his breath, but gives his friend a fond smile after only barely suppressing the urge to drag his hand down the entire length of his face. “Sure, I’ll take the left side if that makes you happy. Now lay down, you look like you’re out of it. Not that I blame you after I’ve been dragging you around all day.”

Watching Ushijima, who’s finally been wheedled into accepting their new arrangement, gingerly pull back the comforter and sit down with his back propped up against the pillows, stiff as a board, would have been funny if Iwaizumi wasn’t busy swallowing around the growing lump in his throat as he’s crawling under the blanket on the other side of the bed.

Even though he tries his best to keep to the very edge of the mattress to avoid intruding too far into Ushijima’s space, their thighs are nearly touching.

He can feel Ushijima’s smoldering body heat seeping through the worn fabric of his shirt and into his side, his bare legs, and suddenly wishes he hadn’t expected to sleep in his usual pair of boxers, but had brought a pair of yoga pants instead. 

Underneath the covers, something warm and rough brushes against his hip. 

It’s merely the ghost of a touch, most likely an accident, yet it effectively interrupts his tortured wallowing and damn nearly has him jumping out of his skin. Iwaizumi turns his head just in time to catch Ushijima staring at the flex of muscle in his forearm before looking away so fast and so pointedly, Iwaizumi is almost sure he must have cricked his neck in the process.

“I’m sorry,” Ushijima blurts, the expression on his face one of genuine horror when he grabs one of his pillows and rolls over onto his side, facing away from Iwaizumi, who’s left gaping at the broad, rigid expanse of Ushijima’s back. 

His gut tells him to reach out, rub Ushijima’s shoulder for comfort and tell him that it’s not a big deal — they’ll have to get used to this type of thing if they’re intending to go through with this after all. However, the memory of Ushijima’s knee-jerk reaction the previous two times they’d briefly made contact gives him pause.

Clearly, Ushijima doesn’t appreciate Iwaizumi getting handsy — if a tender caress to the cheek can be called that in the first place.

Clearly, even his own unintentional touch had upset him.

So Iwaizumi bites down on his bottom lip, forces out a mumbled _“it’s fine”_ and tries to ignore that it hurts.

It fucking hurts, the same way this entire trip had felt like one long, painful realization that no matter how hard he tried, Ushijima wouldn’t be interested in Iwaizumi even if he wasn’t over the moon for his best friend.

Stretching out his arm to fumble for the light switch and plunge the small room into darkness, save for the dim glow of the streetlamp outside their window, he wonders if he’ll find any sleep tonight. Next to him, Ushijima seems to be in a similar predicament, if for different reasons entirely. 

Iwaizumi feels hyper-aware of the heady scent of his cologne, the close proximity of their bodies, a few inches apart at best, and the quiet rhythm of Ushijima’s breathing. He holds his own breath every time Ushijima adjusts his position, re-arranges his pillow, tossing and turning until Iwaizumi is about ready to bolt out of their bed, out of their room, nevermind the fact that there is nowhere for him to go.

After another twenty minutes spent staring holes into the wall as if somehow it would give him all the answers, he decides to flip over onto his stomach, press his face into his pillow and maybe let himself cry a little. And he would have, had it not been for his ears picking up on the sound of soft snoring and oddly cold toes sneaking their way in between his ankles underneath the blanket.

_“Wakatoshi?”_ Iwaizumi whispers into the dark, but there’s no response. The foot presses up against his calf more insistently.

Too stunned to move a muscle, Iwaizumi lets it happen — he knows he shouldn’t, and yet… There’s no harm in it, is there? In him getting to have this for just a moment, just five more minutes.

Predictably, five minutes turn into fifteen, turn into however long it takes him to almost fall asleep before Ushijima happens to mess up his bad acting. In hindsight, his breathing _had_ sounded a bit uneven and the muffled hiccup escaping his lips as Iwaizumi’s eyelids finally begin to feel heavy is a dead giveaway.

“You’re awake,” he snorts dryly. This time it’s not a question. “I can’t sleep either.”

At first Ushijima doesn’t answer beyond a curt grunt. It’s hard to tell in the sparse light filtering through the curtains, but Iwaizumi thinks he can make out a faint blush creeping up the back of Ushijima’s neck where it’s poking out from underneath the covers. 

Maybe he’s just imagining things.

“Look, if something’s the matter, you can tell me. This is ridiculous.”

_Well, that’s rich, coming from you, isn’t it?_

Iwaizumi mulishly ignores the nagging voice inside his head in favor of trying to decipher the jumble of words pouring from Ushijima’s mouth after a few tense beats of silence.

“It’s distracting, knowing that you're right there.”

His heart drops to the very depths of his stomach.

“In a bad way?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” Ushijima admits, a rare hint of genuine frustration bubbling up in his tone and still technically talking to the opposite wall. 

Despite the sting Iwaizumi feels as Ushijima’s words slowly start sinking in, he feels bad for him. He wants to help Ushijima, he realizes, even though his friend’s confession is a hard pill to swallow.

“Why don’t you try to think of it as a sleepover? You know, like when you were a kid.”

He says it casually, thoughtlessly, hears himself speak before his brain can catch up with his mouth and he _knows._

Knows that he fucked up long before his ears pick up on that familiar detachment in Ushijima’s voice, calm and deliberate.

“I wouldn’t know what that’s like.”

Iwaizumi’s first, panicked instinct being to soothe and console, he doesn’t think, lets the sudden, uncharacteristic urge to fill the silence take over only to put his foot in mouth all over again.

“Tooru and I used to sleep at each other’s houses every day of summer break, staying up way too late playing video games or marathoning alien movies, stuffing our faces with that goddamn milk bread he’s so obsessed with.” 

(What on Earth could have possibly made him think that bringing up Oikawa of all people would make this better for Ushijima, let alone himself? At this point, though, it would be too suspicious to cut himself off mid-sentence.

_What difference does it make,_ he tells himself. _The damage is already done._ ) 

“He would wake me in the middle of the night because he’d hear a _scary noise_ and demand to sleep in my bed instead of the futon we laid out for him on the ground. I’d tell him he’d get kicked straight back to the floor if he didn’t let me sleep, but I never actually did. Don’t worry, nothing you do could be worse than his obnoxious fussing.”

There’s an awkward quiet settling over them when Iwaizumi finishes, waiting in suspense for Ushijima to deign him with a response — he couldn’t have put him to sleep with his nervous rambling, could he?

Then again, Iwaizumi can’t help but note that Ushijima is awfully quiet, considering how eager he’d been to talk his ear off about Oikawa barely two hours ago.

“Oikawa seems to make for good company,” that deep voice finally rumbles into the sheets, gravelly with exhaustion. “No matter how hard he tries to convince me otherwise.”

“Yeah, whatever. Who cares about Tooru, what about you? I’m assuming your mom didn’t allow it? Sleepovers, I mean?”

“No one ever invited me.”

For one long, terrible moment Iwaizumi wonders if it wouldn’t be his best bet to simply keep his big mouth shut altogether, lest he find another way to bring the mood down further despite his good intentions.

_I would have invited you,_ he wants to reassure Ushijima, then realizes that no, he most likely wouldn’t have — not at the time. The thought makes his insides churn. Suddenly, he feels sick.

“It’s not too late, you know.”

—

“What’s your favorite color?” Iwaizumi asks while the movie stream on his phone buffers. He impatiently taps at the screen where it’s propped up against his pillow while popping another oreo into his mouth with his other hand.

Out of the corner of his eye, Iwaizumi watches Ushijima inspect a can of soda with unconcealed distaste, lips pressed into a thin line, then pick up a bottle of only marginally less sugary iced tea in its place. No matter how many times he tried to explain the essential role of the junk food he’d run to buy at the twenty-four hour convenience store around the corner during a sleepover, Ushijima chooses to remain sceptical.

“We’ve been friends for four years now, how don’t I already know this?”

After a minute of contemplation, Ushijima turns to look Iwaizumi straight in the eye, his head cocked to the side a little, and Iwaizumi feels like he’s staring straight into his soul. Oikawa used to tell him that he’s too earnest. That he carries his emotions on his face for everyone to see and one of these days it would bite him in the ass.

He hopes today won’t be that day.

“Olive,” Ushijima answers confidently, and if Iwaizumi wasn’t so stupidly, hopelessly mesmerized by the soft dusting of pink blooming high on Ushijima’s cheekbones, he may have drawn some connections. 

“Noted,” Iwaizumi smiles. In the background their movie has begun to play again, yet none of them is paying it much attention. “Your turn.”

“What do you miss the most about Japan?”

“That’s a secret,” he laughs, wrestling down the insane impulse to cup Ushijima’s perplexed face with his hands and kiss him square on the mouth. 

It’s not like he can tell him that not a single day has passed that Iwaizumi hasn’t thought of him; that Ushijima is the first thing on his mind when he scrambles to turn off his alarm before morning class and his last thought when he drops into bed after a long night of finishing homework and papers barely a couple hours shy of the deadline.

“Agedashi tofu is a close second, though. Anyway, would you rather go back in the past, or visit the future?”

“Go back in the past,” Ushijima says a little too quickly, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth as Iwaizumi raises a curious eyebrow at him. “It’s quite obvious that my judgement was… flawed in many ways. Looking back I find it rather unsurprising that you wanted nothing to do with me.”

Taking a deep, calming breath, Iwaizumi grabs Ushijima by the chin, refusing to let him avert his gaze. Sometimes, Ushijima’s determination to hold onto the less pleasant aspects of their shared past gives him a bigger headache than his own grudge had way back when they were foolish teenagers.

“You apologized. You _changed._ How many times have I told you to stop fretting?”

“I—”

“No. I said what I said. Now ask me another question already,” Iwaizumi demands, tone warning Ushijima to save the backtalk, but there’s an indulgent spark in his eyes as he brushes the pad of his thumb over Ushijima’s cheek before grudgingly letting go of his jaw.

Ushijima takes the opportunity to awkwardly glance away in preparation for his next question. A few seconds later, Iwaizumi understands why.

“What do you look for the most in your partner?”

Even though Iwaizumi can come up with at least a handful of incriminating ways to reply to this, he takes his time, pretends to mull the question over in his head as if the answer wasn’t sprawled across the bed, belly-down and propped up on strong, outrageously muscular arms, right next to him.

“He’d be someone who’s honest and loyal. Someone that cares for me and lets me take care of him. Someone I can trust,” Iwaizumi shoots Ushijima a wicked grin before he continues. “And hot, obviously.”

“I see,” Ushijima blurts back, still stubbornly avoiding eye-contact.

“So, I could ask you the same thing. Is there anyone you like?”

Somewhere along the way, his heart has started pounding so hard inside his chest, Iwaizumi can hear its anxious rhythm pulsing in his ears. All of a sudden, his hands feel sweaty, a bit shaky, so he reaches for another candy bar to keep them occupied, fully aware that he will probably regret this in the morning.

For some reason, Ushijima acts equally fidgety, which can only be described as a one-eighty turn from his usual stoic, unshakable demeanor.

“Yes,” Ushijima finally confesses, gaze shuttering as it fixates on a point straight ahead, although there’s nothing to see but a piece of old paint chipping off the bed frame. “But I believe that he’s with somebody else.”

Disappointment and relief rush through Iwaizumi’s mind like a torrent, so wild and contradicting that it has him reeling, speechless for a moment or two until he nearly forgets that he’s only supposed to ask Ushijima one question at a time.

“So they’re serious?”

Ushijima sets his jaw in a way Iwaizumi has learned to understand as his unmistakable way of letting him know that the conversation is over. 

—

“Truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“Text Tooru. Say _I should have come to Aoba Johsai.”_

_“Hajime.”_

“What, you’re scared?”

—

It’s sometime around 4 AM that Iwaizumi is roused from his sleep by the sensation of something short and soft tickling against the underside of his chin — hair, he realizes after his vision has begun to gradually adjust to the semi-darkness of the hotel room a handful of bewildered blinks later. 

His limbs feel heavy and sluggish, his mind groggy and he could swear that he fell asleep just a second ago once he’d finished plucking half-empty bags of chips and candy wrappers off the sheets, stowed away their makeshift movie set-up and tucked in Ushijima, who’d dozed off thirty minutes into Godzilla: King of the Monsters. 

Granted, Iwaizumi had only gotten about three consecutive hours of rest. 

The strange, cozy heat smoldering underneath their shared blanket comes dangerously close to lulling him back to sleep, back to dreams of roaming hands and plush pink lips and eyes of clouded gold, when his sleep-addled brain registers the source of it and threatens to short-circuit on the spot.

Because Ushijima is curled into his embrace, the solid planes of his back pressed flush against Iwaizumi’s chest, Ushijima’s head nestled into the hollow of Iwaizumi’s neck. 

He finds long, powerful legs entangled with his own and to cap it all off, calloused fingers holding Iwaizumi’s wrist in a loose grip, tugging his arm across Ushijima’s waist, bringing his hand precariously close to Ushijima’s crotch.

“God, _fuck,_ this is just unfair,” he hisses under his breath the moment Ushijima decides to tip back his head and nuzzle his nose against Iwaizumi’s jawline.

“Hajime,” Ushijima whispers back breathily, nearly making Iwaizumi’s heart fly out of his chest at the sound of his given name rolling off Ushijima’s tongue, heavy with exhaustion. 

At first, he assumes the worst — that his friend is waking up, slowly, but surely, and trying to get his attention, to get Iwaizumi off of him. That Ushijima is about to find Iwaizumi’s fingers frozen in place where they’re stiffly resting against his hips. 

(Considering their overall position, Iwaizumi might as well have his hand down Ushijima’s pants.)

But when he leans forward to get a good look at Ushijima’s sleeping face, his expression is relaxed, content even. And there it is again, Ushijima’s deep baritone wrapping around each syllable of the word like a chant that has Iwaizumi’s mind go fuzzy:

_Hajime. Hajime. Hajime._

“Wakatoshi...” he croaks out, every inch of his skin tingling with nerves as he places a lingering peck to the crown of Ushijima’s messy bed head because it’s harmless, it’s innocent and Ushijima is dreaming. 

About Iwaizumi.

“I’m here, what is it?”

Rather abruptly, Ushijima starts squirming in his arms as if Iwaizumi’s response had unsettled something deep inside of him, disturbing his sleep that had appeared so peaceful just a minute ago.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” The rest of whatever it is that Ushijima is trying to say is too slurred by sleep and unrest for Iwaizumi to understand. Against better judgement, he leans in further — just a little — to listen more closely to Ushijima’s incoherent mumbling.

“Didn’t mean to do what?”

“... weren’t supposed to find out. Oikawa…”

Oikawa.

Of course. At the end of the day it always boils down to the same thing.

Part of Iwaizumi can’t help wanting to keep prodding. He knows it’s wrong, but—

Before he can reach a final decision, the fingers of his free hand still absent-mindedly caressing up and down the side of Ushijima’s neck, Ushijima jumps awake with a startled gasp. Iwaizumi’s eyes widen in shock as Ushijima shoots upright at a dizzying speed, spine ramrod straight, bleary gaze morphing into an expression of blank terror as soon as it falls on Iwaizumi, and he flinches away all the way to the other end of the mattress.

Ice-cold dread grips Iwaizumi’s heart like a vice and he doesn’t give himself the time to think better of it when he follows with a tentative touch to Ushijima’s forearm, parts his lips to speak, but the words get stuck in the back of his throat the instance Ushijima shoves his hand away and paces over to his travel bag, mechanically stuffing his scattered belongings inside.

He doesn’t look at Iwaizumi; not even a fleeting glance.

He doesn’t look at Iwaizumi and Iwaizumi understands with a sudden sense of existential dread that if he must he can live without Ushijima’s affections, but he doesn’t want to live without his friendship. Unfortunately, the latter seems to be the path they’re heading down.

“I should leave,” Ushijima finally breaks through the panicked haze of his thoughts. The impalpable shiver underlying Ushijima’s carefully controlled tone has Iwaizumi’s head snapping up to stare at him in pleading disbelief.

“It’s fuck o’ clock in the morning. Where would you even go?”

The way Ushijima’s large hands curl around the strap of his bag, eyes screwed shut tightly and shoulders hunched over in defeat at the undeniable truth behind Iwaizumi’s statement makes guilt trickle down his airways until they’re threatening to close up.

“You’re with Oikawa. It’s not appropriate for me to sleep in this bed with you. I thought I would be able to control myself, but—“

And for the third time in a single night, Iwaizumi feels his world tilting on its axis, shaken at its very foundations. He wants to tear out his hair and scream and, for a terrible fraction of a second, storm out of the room, never looking back.

(Not that he can think of a single scenario that could make him do this to Ushijima. It’s not Ushijima’s fault, he reminds himself, and neither is it Oikawa’s.)

“Whoa, Wakatoshi, back up.” 

He forces himself to keep his voice even as if any piece of him was fine with what he’s about to say in an awkward attempt at reassurance. “Tooru and I aren’t an item. You can feel free to take a shot as long as you realize what you’re in for—“

“I’m not interested in Oikawa,” Ushijima deadpans like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Or the most humiliating if the sad twist to the thin line of his lips is anything to go by.

“You’re not,” Iwaizumi repeats dumbly.

A long beat of silence stretches out between them, Ushijima crouching on the ground, paralyzed, while Iwaizumi tries and fails to wrap his head around the fact that his tender feelings may not be as unrequited as he’d been led to believe.

“I don’t want your pity, Hajime.”

“Hey,” he whispers gently after he crosses the room in a couple of hurried strides and kneels down in front of Ushijima’s slumped form, pries his fingers off the strap despite Ushijima’s initial resistance and cradles them in his own.

“For how long?” Iwaizumi rubs slow, soothing circles into the center of Ushijima’s palm. Instinctively, he presses their foreheads together as he notices Ushijima swallowing hard around the answer he’s wrestling with himself to give.

“Since back at the airport, a week after I first ran into you in Irvine. You said you’d miss my company. You looked at me like you meant it.”

“I did,” the reassurance bursts forth hastily, and Iwaizumi frames Ushijima’s face with his hands, forcing him to look him straight in the eye.

“Every goddamn day, I miss you.”

Then he kisses Ushijima, hard and urgent, emboldened by the newly found knowledge that Ushijima has been aching for him just as badly, and for just as long.

“I thought you wanted him,” Iwaizumi swipes the tip of his tongue over Ushijima’s plush bottom lip. Ushijima’s mouth parts for him easily, eager hands scrabbling up the back of Iwaizumi’s tank top, unsure where they’re allowed to touch, and Ushijima helplessly groans into the kiss. “Tooru. I thought you wouldn’t even look my way.”

They almost trip over each other twice on their way back to the bed. 

By the time Ushijima’s back finally collides with the mattress, Iwaizumi has tugged Ushijima’s shirt up and over his head to reveal the sight of his tan, freakishly chiseled torso and shucked off his own top, wide golden eyes following his every move as he crawls up the length of Ushijima’s body to get his lips back on that red, pliant mouth.

Of course Iwaizumi is aware that Ushijima hasn’t been with anyone these past few years (or, as far as he knows, ever), yet there’s something surprisingly sweet about sensing the struggle between hunger and reluctance in Ushijima’s touch. 

Something that makes Iwaizumi want to take his time with him, take care of him, ruin him slowly until he has Ushijima writhing atop their torn up sheets.

“Easy,” he smiles against the dimple forming in Ushijima’s right cheek when he has to sneak a hand between them to hold Ushijima’s bucking hips in place and Ushijima laughs breathlessly — a sound that makes Iwaizumi’s stomach tingle with butterflies.

Ushijima’s fingers in his hair and his warm, wet kisses, the drag off Ushijima’s clothed cock against his bare thigh — it ignites a fire in Iwaizumi that he didn’t remember was even there. He takes a firm hold of Ushijima’s chin and brushes his thumb over swollen lips, pupils dilated, his tongue tenderly caressing its way back inside Ushijima’s mouth, coaxing his body to relax one shivery moan at a time.

Once the nervous tension finally melts from the strong line of Ushijima’s shoulders, Iwaizumi deems it safe to continue exploring, littering Ushijima’s neck and chest with playful nips, marking his territory where purple marks bloom on flushed skin. He can’t stop himself from smirking up at Ushijima when he suckles one dark, perky nipple in between his teeth, leaving Ushijima hard and oversensitive, hands roaming down his sides, then back up his sculpted abs, his pecs—

The image of a young God, Iwaizumi thinks to himself. Sacred, unmarred. So much so that he almost feels guilty to debauch him.

Almost.

“Can I touch you?” Iwaizumi asks, hooks his fingers under the waistband of Ushijima’s soft yoga pants. “We don’t have to do this, you know? If it’s too soon—“

“You don’t have to...“ Ushijima’s voice is gravelly with anticipation, hips jerking violently enough for Iwaizumi to take it as an invitation to mouth at the prominent bulge in front of him with just enough pressure to drive Ushijima wild.

_“Oh, I’m gonna eat you up.”_

And so Iwaizumi does.

Somewhere at the back of his mind, he registers the sound of Ushijima’s palm clamping over the lower half of his face to muffle a guttural growl that goes straight to Iwaizumi’s aching cock. Large hands helplessly fist the sheets when he finally lays Ushijima bare, feeling his mouth water at the sight of Ushijima’s fat cock springing free from the confines of his briefs. It slaps against Iwaizumi’s cheek, slick and heavy, and Iwaizumi can’t turn his head fast enough to lick at the thick vein on the underside of Ushijima’s shaft.

_“Hajime,”_ Ushijima pants. It’s barely a whisper and Iwaizumi can’t help but smile knowingly, like the cat that got the canary because Ushijima is coming apart at the seams and it’s all for him. For Iwaizumi alone.

He doesn’t know how to break to Ushijima that he hasn’t even gotten started yet.

It’s heady, the scent of him as Iwaizumi buries his nose in the coarse hair at the base of Ushijima’s cock, slips his fingers between Ushijima’s quivering thighs to tease at his balls and toy with them idly as he leaves a trail of open-mouthed kisses up the entire thick length of him before swirling his tongue around the twitching head.

Within a matter of minutes, he feels drunk on the taste, the sheer girth of Ushijima stretching his puffy lips open wide, the pretty arch of Ushijima’s spine underneath his fingertips. Iwaizumi forces himself to relax his jaw despite the pleasant burn, savoring every inch of Ushijima breaching his throat until he’s stuffed so full of cock it knocks the breath out of his lungs.

Dark, hooded eyes watering at the pleasure-pain of it, he sets a languid rhythm that has Ushijima keening with pleasure, thrashing with the primal urge to fuck up into the soft, wet heat of Iwaizumi’s mouth and plant his seed there, and _God,_ does some shameless, whorish part of Iwaizumi want him to.

But not tonight. 

Tonight, every shuddering kiss and pleading touch of Ushijima’s hands is asking for his guidance and who is Iwaizumi to deny it to him? 

In fact, he has a growing suspicion that he won’t be able to deny the man anything for the rest of his life. He can’t say that he minds, though; doesn’t mind at all.

So he resumes his careful ministrations, letting his tongue trace over every vein and ridge of Ushijima’s cock that he can reach before popping off the fat tip with a blissful groan to admire the pearls of pre-cum beading around the slit. Maybe, if he hadn’t been so hot for it after four years of guilty fantasies about the taste of his friend’s cum down his throat, he would have noticed that Ushijima has been driven way beyond his breaking point, still teetering on the very edge of a mindblowing orgasm by sheer force of will.

With Iwaizumi’s fingertips spreading his cheeks, experimentally caressing around the sensitive rim of Ushijima’s hole and the overwhelming feeling of a spit-slick mouth suckling at his swollen cockhead where it’s resting heavily at the tip of Iwaizumi’s tongue, Ushijima unravels in his arms. 

Iwaizumi’s eyes blow wide as a shudder wracks through every fiber of Ushijima’s being, powerful and quiet, toes curling, left hand clawing at Iwaizumi’s hair in a hopeless attempt to pull him off before he shoots his load in thick white ropes, Iwaizumi’s parted lips spilling over with it, unable to swallow it all down despite his best efforts.

When Iwaizumi glances up at him, still eagerly gagging around Ushijima’s softening cock, he’s pleased to find that Ushijima’s right arm is thrown haphazardly across his beet-red face. There’s a few sweaty strands of hair stuck flat to his forehead, jaw slack, stern eyebrows drawn together in concentration. Unlike a minute ago he’s lying stock-still, save for the controlled heaving of his chest, skin glistening with a thin sheen of sweat.

“Hajime,” Ushijima rasps, and if the low gravel of his voice had made Iwaizumi weak in the knees before, this new, sex-rough undertone nearly has him coming in his boxers.

“I can’t believe I just—“

“Made all of my wet dreams come true?”

For a moment Ushijima glares down at him incredulously through a narrow gap between his fingers — strong, ruthless fingers that Iwaizumi wants to feel digging crescent marks into his shoulder blades as he drills Ushijima into the mattress. 

Iwaizumi’s tongue flicks out at the thought, licking at the corner of his mouth and tasting Ushijima there, raking his eyes up Ushijima’s body like he’s a hot second away from devouring him whole.

“You’re still hard,” Ushijima observes eventually, straight-faced as usual, yet Iwaizumi isn’t so easily fooled by his seemingly impassive facade. There’s an undercurrent of insecurity in that steady golden gaze, a question Ushijima isn’t asking — not in so many words, anyway.

Rock solid muscle flexes underneath the smooth skin of Ushijima’s thighs and Iwaizumi hooks them around his waist, leans forward slowly to suck another love bite into Ushijima’s throat.

“You’ll thank me later.” He brushes the tips of two fingers over Ushijima’s entrance. “I just got warmed-up.”

Ushijima strains his neck at that, demanding to be kissed, all breathy sighs and tangled fingers and pent-up longing.

“Love me.”

“I do. I will.”

—

It’s intoxicating, the sight of Ushijima — quiet, fierce, indomitable Ushijima — reduced to a shivery mess on Iwaizumi’s cock, sprawled across the rumpled sheets with his legs spread wide, eyes rolling back into his head when Iwaizumi grinds into his prostrate in a series of quick, shallow thrusts that leave Ushijima’s entire body quaking.

“Fuck, you’re tight,” Iwaizumi groans. He strengthens his grip around Ushijima’s hips in his lap to hold him still, hold him flush against himself as if he could fuck him any deeper, as if Ushijima’s large hand wasn’t splayed across his lower stomach to feel Iwaizumi rutting into his slicked-up hole.

He’d been gentle with Ushijima, patiently kissed gasp after soft gasp out of his pliant mouth until Ushijima couldn’t take it any longer, three of Iwaizumi’s fingers curled against that sweet spot inside of him that has him keening for more; even now. 

Even now that he’s taken Iwaizumi to the hilt, his free hand tugging on Iwaizumi’s wrist. Iwaizumi smiles as insistent fingers wriggle their way into the gaps between his own and gives them a reassuring squeeze.

“You’re so good.” He bends over to press his lips against Ushijima’s for a sloppy kiss. A quick peck is all that he can manage before dragging another desperate gulp of air into his aching lungs, snapping his hips forward again and again and again, coaxing strings of sweet, clipped moans from Ushijima’s mouth as he jostles him on the mattress. “The way you feel— _God—”_

Something snaps inside Ushijima at the praise.

There’s no slow build-up, no warning sign, nothing; just the overwhelming sensation of Ushijima’s walls clenching uncontrollably around his cock, warm and soft. Iwaizumi’s hand falls from Ushijima’s hip to press Ushijima’s arm down over his head and he forces himself to focus, fuck him through it hard, his head thrown back and his lips parted on his name.

It takes him a couple of minutes to come down from his own earth-shaking climax, but already there’s a barely audible grunt of discontent tickling against the shell of his ear as soon as he shifts his lower body to pull out and roll off of Ushijima — surely, Ushijima must be tired of bearing Iwaizumi’s deadweight after he had so gracelessly collapsed onto Ushijima’s chest once he’d spent himself inside. Or so Iwaizumi would have thought if it wasn’t for a pair of unreasonably strong arms twining around his waist.

“Fine,” Iwaizumi chuckles after catching a glimpse of a flash of molten gold peering up at him through Ushijima’s disheveled bangs. “You’ll probably complain about it later, though.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Opening and closing his mouth, Iwaizumi decides that it’s a lost cause. He rolls his eyes, fondly; presses a kiss to the damp skin of Ushijima’s forehead.

“Whatever you say.”

—

An hour later, Iwaizumi is lying with his head comfortably resting in Ushijima’s lap, fishing the last pocky out of the box on his nightstand and poking it against the thin line of Ushijima’s lips.

“What are you smiling about?” Ushijima asks, barely suppressing a yawn. Elated by the opportunity, Iwaizumi shoves the chocolate-covered end of the stick straight into Ushijima’s mouth. This earns him an exasperated glare, accompanied by calloused fingers swatting at his hand to get him out of Ushijima’s business, but he can’t help but find that it was well worth it — if only to see that stern little wrinkle on the bridge of Ushijima’s nose.

“Nothing.”

Ushijima shoots him a look so flat, it makes Iwaizumi chortle.

“I was just thinking about how I knew you’d have a big dick.”

“You’ve thought about my—”

“Well, yeah, I’ve liked you for years. You really think I never looked at your ass or—” It’s hard to tell if Ushijima is embarrassed, or scandalized. “Hey, cut me some slack, it’s a really nice ass?”

After several long beats of silence, Ushijima clears his throat, then confesses.

“I’ve thought about you too.”

“You don’t say,” Iwaizumi grins triumphantly as he pops the remnants of the pocky between his teeth.

—

“What I missed the most about Japan, it’s you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe there’s a chance I can be convinced to write a sequel to this. You know, about them breaking in their bed in their first shared apartment or something. Maybe…
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed my fic! ♡ Feel free to leave me comments and kudos if you did, it makes my entire day!
> 
> You can also talk Iwaushi to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/OlKAWAT00RU), where I occasionally post some AUs as well.


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